March 29, 2005

Update: Up is still down

In all that lies ahead, our nation will continue to clarify for other nations the moral choice between oppression and freedom, and we will make it clear that, ultimately, success in our relations depends on the treatment of their own people. America's belief in human dignity and human rights will guide our policy.

I could do the obvious thing, which would be to type the phrase "human rights" and have the words "human rights" be linked to pictures of Abu Ghraib. Similarly, that would be the obvious thing to do with the phrase "human dignity." Or I could find a paper about increasing income inequality in the US and link to that through the phrase "treatment of their own people."

But nevermind that. Mostly, I'm wondering why the right is bothering with this human rights crap at all. First of all, no really believes that the care about human rights, given that they've never cared about the rights of women, blacks, gays, Mexicans, and just about any other minority group you can think of. Secondly, though, they seem more interested in "liberating" countries than they do in securing rights for them. Bush said so in his second inaugural. Liberty is prior to rights, not vice versa, as the rest of the civilized world assumes:

In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.

Which help explain why the US was kicked off the UN Human Rights Commission in 2001.

By the way, I think we've had a president before who talked of the need to have a human-rights based foreign policy. And I don't think he was a republican. In fact, I don't think republicans think very much of him.